A new catalytic spectrophotometric method for the determination of trace amounts of molybdenum (VI) has been proposed. The method is based on the catalytic effect of Mo(VI) on the reduction of metanil yellow by hydrazine dihydrochloride. Under experiment condition, the linear range of determination is 20-160 ng/mL for molybdenum and the detection limit is 11.2 ng/mL. The method has been used to determine trace molybdenum in bean samples with the recovery of 96.0-99.0%, with relative standard deviations of 1.50-2.53%.